In most modern organizations, many of the employees or members have their own personal computers. These computers are typically physically distributed throughout the organization's facilities but interconnected via a computer network to enable the exchange of information. Many mid-size and large organizations will also have personnel dedicated to maintaining the network, performing tasks such as network management, installing new computers, and repairing those computers that have already been installed.
Since employee reliance on the computers is growing as their use and functionality increase, it is desirable to decrease the downtime. As a result, maintenance personnel should be dispatched to a malfunctioning computer as soon as possible.
The issue is addressed, somewhat, in newer remote-power-on systems. These systems typically have an power supply that operates on line power, in addition to the main power supply for the computer. The network interface card is at least partially powered by the auxiliary power supply when the computer is otherwise off. This partial powering allows the network interface card to receive primitive messages from the network, such as a remote-power-on command. When received, the command is typically passed to a microcontroller within the computer that activates a power-up sequence. Such a system allows the computer to be remotely powered-up and booted to perform maintenance or so that the computer is operational when the employee returns to work in the morning, for example.
In the remote-power-on systems, there is typically some mechanism for notifying a control console if a particular computer fails to properly power-up. This functionality is supported by placing a primitive operating system in the memory storing the basic input/output system (BIOS) so that the central processing unit (CPU) of the computer can construct the appropriate message and place it in the network interface card's transport buffer for transmission to the control console.